Two Meters of this Land by Mahmoud Darwish
http://www.vimeo.com/7857751
I guess I betray my fondness for minimalism by posting this very spare, not terribly illuminating trailer for “A film by Ahmad Natche … shot in Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) in the Summer of 2009, inspired by a Mahmoud Darwish poem.” Here’s the film’s website.
If You Were… by Julian Daniel
Tamzin Forster’s animation for what she calls a love poem by Julian Daniel. This was the winner in the Best Poem Film category at the 2009 Version Film Fest in Manchester, UK.
A Broadway Pageant, Mannahatta, and Crossing Brooklyn Ferry by Walt Whitman
This is Manhatta, a proto-filmpoem from the silent film era, now residing in the Internet Archive. This was a collaboration between painter Charles Sheeler and photographer Paul Strand. Pour a drink, put on some music, and expand this to full screen.
A page at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s website helps place it in historical context:
In 1920 [Charles Sheeler] worked with Paul Strand on Manhatta, a short expressive film about New York City based on portions of Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass.” The six-minute film spans an imaginary day in the life of New York City, beginning with footage of Staten Island ferry commuters and culminating with the sun setting over the Hudson River. It has been described as the first avant-garde film made in America. Its many brief shots and dramatic camera angles emphasize New York’s photographic nature. Sheeler exhibited Manhatta as both projected film (as seen in this section) as well as prints made from the film strips that he used like photographic negatives.
(“New York’s photographic nature”? I guess they mean photogenic. Whatever. It’s a great film.)
I Heard a … When I Died
“A contemporary interpretation of a poem written by Emily Dickinson on life/death from the perspective of the fly,” says the filmmaker, Sasha Sumner. A brilliant little short which shows that sometimes a great soundtrack is almost all you need to make your point. (For a video of the complete poem, see Lynn Tomlinson’s clay-on-glass animation.)
Akka Mahadevi eight centuries later
I don’t often share videos uploaded by someone other than the copyright holder, because chances are eventually they’ll get taken down and I’ll have a dead post. But these are too good to miss: five selections from Scribbles on Akka, a 60-minute film in Hindi and Kannada with English subtitles directed by Madhusree Dutta, with music by Ilayaraja, and starring Seema Biswas, Sabitri Heisnam, and Harish Khanna. Here’s a synopsis from Upperstall.com:
Scribbles on Akka is a short film on the life and work of the 12th century saint poet, Mahadevi Akka. Her radical poems, written with the female body as a metaphor, have been composed and picturised in contemporary musical language. Mahadevi, famed as Akka — elder sister, while leaving the domestic arena in search of God, also abandoned modesty and clothing. The film explores the meaning of this denial through the work of contemporary artists and writers and testimonies of ordinary folks who nurtured her image through centuries in their folklores and oral literature. A celebration of rebellion, feminity and legacy down nine hundred years.
The female director writes,
The film is an exercise in building a bridge across eight hundred years. Mahadevi Akka, the poet, still influences the contemporary poets and painters. Mahadevi Akka, the deity, graces the packets of pickles and papads — prepared by ladies’ co-operatives. Mahadevi Akka, the legendary nude saint, adorns pinup posters and music cassette covers. The bridge is already there. But how did it happen?
Why women poets of feminist era obsessively write pieces of dialogues with Akka? Why a painter in Baroda incessantly paints various images of Akka? Why is she still marketable as a brand name? Who is she?
I don’t know, but I will say that the Indian filmmaking style seems tailor-made for videopoetry.
Emptiness by Akka Mahadevi
Click the four-arrows icon on the bottom right to watch this full-screen: a musical, modern-dance interpretation of a suite of poems by Akka Mahadevi, A.K.A. Mahadeviyakka, the great Saivite bhakti poet. These are Jane Hirshfield’s translations from the 12th-century Kannada. For more on Mahadevi, see Kristen McHenry’s Obscure Poets column on Mahadevi at Read Write Poem.
There’s full nudity in the last few minutes, so this may not be entirely work-safe, depending on where you work. Mahadevi, like many of her male counterparts in Indian ascetic practice, dispensed with clothes.
The description on Viddler gives the full credits:
Live performance, March 3, 2007, in New York City’s Dance New Amsterdam. Amy Pivar Dances presents Songs For Solo Dance and Voice. “Emptiness,” music by Paula M. Kimper, translation of Mahadeviyakka (India, 12thc.) by Jane Hirshfield. Amy Pivar – dancer/choreographer, Elaine Valby and Gilda Lyons – vocals, Paula M. Kimper – guitar. Video by Vanessa Scanlan.
Thirteen Mahadevi poems in English translation are available on the Poet Seers site.
Tomorrow: More Akka Mahadevi vachanas, as interpreted by a contemporary Indian filmmaker.
At the time to set the table, we were five, by José Luís Peixoto
Update: this video is on longer online.
A simple yet affecting video for the poem “Na hora de pôr a mesa, éramos cinco” by the contemporary Portuguese novelist and poet José Luís Peixoto. Gustavo Santos has uploaded two versions, the other without English subtitles.
Ram’s Head by George Anderson
George Anderson, a Canadian living in Australia, reads his poem in this video by Laww Media, filmmakers from Wollongong, Australia.
Mutability by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Just your standard Shelley zombie flick. Rather heavy on the bogus production company credits but otherwise a memorable addition to the videopoetry corpus, I thought. Joseph Blackwell directs and narrates. Oh, and here’s the poem in case you need a refresher:
We are the clouds that veil the midnight moon;
How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly!–yet soon
Night closes round, and they are lost forever:Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last.We rest.–A dream has power to poison sleep;
We rise.–One wandering thought pollutes the day;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
Embrace fond foe, or cast our cares away:It is the same!–For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free:
Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability.
Velimir Khlebnikov: Children of the Otter
Contemporary Russian composer Vladimir Martynov discusses his suite, Children of the Otter, which incorporates Tuvan music and throat-singing, and is based upon the “supersaga” of the same title (also translated as “Otter’s Children”) by the early 20th-century Russian futurist poet Velimir Khlebnikov. The interview was conducted shortly before the premiere of the work in the city of Perm, near the Ural mountains, last September. The Vimeo page describes the background of the piece in considerable detail.
The story of “Children of the Otter” began in the summer of 2008 when producers Vladimir Oboronko and Alexander Cheparukhin, long-time friends and GreenWave Music partners, approached a renowned Russian contemporary composer Vladimir Martynov.
The idea was very simple: create a composition that would blend ancient sound of Tuvan folk music with the sound of contemporary chamber orchestra.
The Tuvan side of the music would be represented by Huun Huur Tu, the foremost Tuvan band, with which Cheparukhin had been working since the early 1990s and Oboronko joined him in 2005. The contemporary side of the music would be represented by Vladimir Martynov’s composing and Moscow chamber orchestra Opus Posth’s performing.
Vladimir Martynov agreed to work on the project during the first meeting. He knew Huun Huur Tu’s music, saw them live, and was excited about using contemporary composing techniques to blend the ancient Tuvan sound with avant-garde sensibilities of Opus Posth.
He wrote a composition for Huun Huur Tu, Opus Posth, and choir, and also incorporated poetry of Velimir Khlebnikov, famous Russian futurist poet of early 20th century. The composition was named “Children of the Otter” after the name of one of Khlebnikov’s poems.
Excerpts from the 75-minute composition. Again, see the video description for full details. A DVD of the performance is slated for release this month.
Don’t miss a post
Free weekly digest of Moving Poems content